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There is no dearth of pyaar-vyaar love-shove in Sweet Dreams, a poor copy of a very poor film 2014 television film ‘In My Dreams’.

The first question that pops up while watching this wishy-washy rom-com is, why appropriate ideas from a dubious source? The original was incredibly awful, and the remake is just about borderline unbearable.

Very simply put, the oversweetened pudding plot is about two strangers, Kenny (Amol Parashar) and Dia (Mithila Parker), who “meet” each other in their dreams without ever having met in reality.

So, where does something so intrinsically trite go from its inception? Did someone say downhill? The individual scenes are written as if they were audition sheets for a high school play for Valentine’s Day. The characters speak as if they were recording voice notes.

There is a relatively interesting passage where Kenny is on a blind date with a girl who is a...

Here’s What You Can Watch This Republic Day Weekend! (Photo Credit – Instagram)

For this weekend, we’ve curated a diverse lineup of films and series for your entertainment. In theatres, enjoy a Bollywood release, a Hollywood feature, the 4K re-release of a celebrated Indo-Japanese anime classic, or a Mollywood movie—whatever suits your fancy. On the Ott front, Netflix brings two new titles, Apple TV+ presents an intriguing sci-fi miniseries, and Amazon Prime debuts a Telugu series, among others. Scroll down for the complete list!

Netflix The Night Agent Season 02 Episode 01 (English)

Release Date: 23 January 2025

Created by Shawn Ryan, this spy conspiracy action thriller stars Gabriel Basso and is based on Matthew Quirk’s novel of the same name. The series has already been renewed for a third season, with the second season delving into new conspiracies and high-stakes international conflicts.

You Hurt My Feelings (English)

Release Date: 26 January 2025

The film,...

One of the classics of 1980s new wave music was the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” Marilyn Manson covered the song, making the dark side of its lyrics that much more obvious. One of the members of the Eurythmics revealed what he thought when he heard Manson demolish his signature tune and build it up anew.

How the Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’ changed Marilyn Manson’s career

In the 1980s, the Eurythmics ruled the airwaves with “Sweet Dreams,” a new wave single that came out at the height of that style of music. In the 1990s, Manson reinterpreted the track as a Satanic-sounding hard rock number. His version garnered enough attention that he went on to remake many new wave songs, such as Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” and Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.”

During a 2013 interview with Metro, the Eurythmics’ David A. Stewart was asked to name the...

“The Possessed,” the third feature film from Bosnian-Dutch filmmaker Ena Sendijarević and her English-language debut, has been greenlit and is set to shoot in Spain at the start of 2026.

The project, which was selected for Cinemart last year, will be presented to buyers at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. International casting is underway. The project, which has 1.2 million Euros in place through the Netherlands Film Fund, has secured majority production funding.

Sendijarević’s second feature “Sweet Dreams,” which was in the main competition at Locarno, was chosen as the official Dutch submission for this year’s Academy Awards. The colonial satire was deemed a “startlingly accomplished sophomore film” by Variety’s reviewer. She signed with Black Bear’s management arm in January and was selected as one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch this year.

Sendijarević’s 2019 feature debut, “Take Me Somewhere Nice,” an absurdist European road trip movie, won...

How Is Britney Spears Responding To Concerns Of Alleged “Erratic Behavior” ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

Since the last few months, there have been several reports of people being worried about Britney Spears. Her loved ones, her team, and her managers are allegedly worried about the pop star as her “erratic” behavior does not seem to end. Recent reports have also claimed that her spending has also begun hurting her financial situation due to a lack of active sources of money.

The 43-year-old is now reportedly asking people to back off and let her live her life as she wants, especially after she finally got free from her decades-long conservatorship not too long ago. Here’s what we know about the dramatic situation and how Spears allegedly reacts to it.

Is Britney Spears Brushing Off Erratic Behavior Concerns?

According to In Touch Weekly, “Britney is brushing off new concerns for her wellbeing...

Did Meryl Streep Want To Play Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams? ( Photo Credit – Wikimedia )

Imagine this: Meryl Streep as Patsy Cline. A country queen twist on Meryl the Goat—sounds like a perfect fit, right? But nope. Even Meryl Streep, with her 21 Oscar nominations and legendary status, didn’t land this one. She once told Vanity Fair, “Karel was a friend of mine who I adored, and he was making a film about Patsy Cline, who is a singer I adored.” Two legends, one film, and yet… no Meryl.

Instead, the role went to Jessica Lange, the blonde powerhouse who made Patsy Cline her own in Sweet Dreams. Karel Reisz, the director, decided Jessica would look better in the role. Sure, casting decisions happen. But Meryl wasn’t bitter. She made peace with the loss, swapping potential fame for a cozy stay at Reisz’s house while filming Plenty in England.

Sex Education‘s Aimee Lou Wood’s BBC romantic comedy series Film Club has built out cast.

She is penning Film Club with Ralph Davis (House of the Dragon), who is also starring in the show, and added to the cast are Suranne Jones and Nabhaan Rizwan, whose Netflix drama Kaos was recently cancelled. Adam Long and Liv Hill are also starring.

Film Club has commenced filming in Manchester and will air next year on BBC iPlayer and BBC Three and later on ZDFneo in Germany. Gaumont UK is producing, with Fremantle handling international sales. Show was first announced back in February.

Plot follows Evie (Wood), who hasn’t left her home in six months after a ‘wobble’. She runs a film club in her garage as an escape with her best friend Noa (Rizwan) and whoever else turns up.

Exclusive: Daveed Diggs (Nickel Boys), Mason Gooding (Scream), Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Johnny Knoxville (Jackass), and stand-up comedian and actress Margaret Cho (All That We Love) will round out the cast of I Want Your Sex, Gregg Araki’s Black Bear thriller starring Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman and Charli Xcx, which has wrapped production in Los Angeles.

Details as to the roles to be played by the quintet are under wraps. A provocative film blithely exploring desire, domination, and fantasy, I Want Your Sex asks, how far is too far? When fresh-faced Elliot (Hoffman) lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex,...

Universal-owned animation studio Illumination surprised fans with a Halloween special based on its popular Sing franchise. The special, Sing: Thriller, was released on Netflix this Wednesday and announced the day before.

The 11-minute short sees the cast and characters reenact scenes from the music video for the famous 1983 Michael Jackson song “Thriller.” Many of the actors, such as Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson, Nick Kroll, Taron Egerton, and Tori Kelly, return for the special. Garth Jennings, director of the first two films, also returns to direct and voice the character Ms. Crawly.

So is Sing: Thriller full of spooky songs and terrifying tunes? Let’s find out.

The special begins with the theater troop performing a play at the theater. We see many cameos in the crowd, including a surprise return of fan-favorite Mike the Mouse from the first Sing movie, who was originally voiced by Seth McFarlane. They put...

Leading Dutch independent production company Lemming Film has restructured, promoting producers Erik Glijnis and Tom van Blommestein to the new positions of head of film and head of TV series respectively.

The restructure comes as Lemming manages a busy development and production slate (see below for more details).

Glijnis has worked at Lemming since 2016 and has producing credits including Sweet Dreams, which premiered in Locarno in 2023 and was the Dutch Oscar candidate, Do Not Hesitate, Milk and Dead And Beautiful.

Van Blommestein joined Lemming in 2020 having formerly worked at Nl Film and Endemol Shine. His credits include Zenith season 2, Floor Rules,...

Marco Bellocchio’s “Se posso permettermi Capitolo II” (May I Say? Chapter Two), which has its world premiere Sunday in the Out of Competition section of the Venice Film Festival, has debuted a first clip (below). Rai Cinema is handling world sales.

The 30-minute film is the sequel to the short of the same name made in 2019 as part of the Fare Cinema (Making Cinema) training program.

The synopsis reads as follows: “Over the course of one day, Fausto, invincible in his inertia, watches a paradoxical procession of visitors pass by: the mellifluous village parish priest; a mysterious man with his absurd idea of a ghost-themed business; the captain of the Carabinieri who proposes a shotgun wedding with his daughter, who’s carrying the child of a stranger.

“Finally, late at night, a pair of thieves, in cahoots with Barbara, break into the house. Fausto surprises them, as always impassive and bored,...

“Sweet Dreams” the new R-rated comedy feature, written and directed by Lije Sarki, stars Johnny Knoxville, Mo Amer, GaTa, Bobby Lee, Theo Von, Brian Van Holt, Jonnie Park, Shakewell, Adam Faison, Erik Anthony Gonzalez and Beth Grant, with Jay Mohr and Kate Upton, now streaming on Prime Video:

“…forced into rehab at the ‘Sweet Dreams’ recovery center, ‘Morris’ (Knoxville) struggles to confront the wreckage of his life.

‘But when their house goes up for auction, he reluctantly agrees to coach their misfit softball team of recovering addicts to win a cash prize and prove that everyone, despite their past, can hit a home run…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

Zach Bryan and Beyoncé lead a crowded, star-studded pack of nominees for the 2024 People’s Choice Country.

Bryan picked up 19 nominations total, Beyoncé followed just behind with 17, and Kacey Musgraves picked up the third most with 15. All three artists will vie for the night’s top prize, The People’s Artist of 2024, alongside Jelly Roll, Kane Brown, Lainey Wilson, Luke Combs, and last year’s winner Morgan Wallen.

Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Bryan’s self-titled album will also compete for The Album of 2024, as will Musgraves’ Deeper Well,...

Sandy Cheeks takes center stage in Netflix’s new installment in the “SpongeBob SquarePants” universe, “Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie.” When the beloved residents of Bikini Bottom get snatched up and hauled off to Texas, Sandy and SpongeBob head out on an adventure to save the whole neighborhood.

Of course, the cast is full of familiar “SpongeBob SquarePants” voices, but the adventure also spends some time on the road with Sandy’s family and introduces some new — yet also familiar — names to the cast. So if you’re wondering who’s who in the new “SpongeBob” movie, here’s a handy guide to the “Sandy Cheeks Movie” cast and characters.

Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy Cheeks (Photo Credit: Netflix / Getty Images)

Sandy Cheeks is once again voiced by Carolyn Lawrence, the voice actress who has played the character from the original series through numerous spin-off series, films and video games.

With the afternoon sun beating down on East Texas, Koe Wetzel has decided it’s time to jump off the roof.

It’s late June, and Wetzel, with a vodka and soda in hand, is sitting in his boathouse, staring out at the lake. This Friday, he’ll release his new album 9 Lives on Columbia Records, and based on the streaming and chart success of its first singles, it’s poised to be the biggest of the Texas country singer’s five studio albums. But he’s also at the mind-numbing point of album promotion,...

Melbourne International Film Festival has revealed the 10 titles in the running for its $94,500 competition prize.

Debut and second features are eligible for the Bright Horizons competition, which was introduced in 2022.

The line-up includes several Cannes titles; Leonardo Van Dijl’s tennis misconduct drama Julie Keeps Quiet which won the Critics’ Week Sacd award; Mo Harawe’s The Village Next to Paradise, the first Somali film to ever screen at Cannes (in the Un Certain Regard section) this year; and Un Certain Regard animation Flow from Gints Zilbalodis, recently a prizewinner at Annecy.

More Cannes titles are; Rungano Nyoni’s second...

The Melbourne International Film Festival has set ten features to play in its Bright Horizons competition section.

They include: India Donaldson’s “Good One”; Luna Carmoon’s “Hoard”; Annie Baker’s “Janet Planet”; Leonardo Van Dijl’s “Julie Keeps Quiet”; Ena Sendijarević’s “Sweet Dreams”; Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language”; Mo Harawe’s “The Village Next to Paradise”; Gints Zabalodis’ animated “Flow”; Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”; and Australian director Charles Williams’ debut feature “Inside.”

The non-competitive Headliners section, which showcases films that have premiered at other festivals, includes: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis”; Mumbai-based director Payal Kapadia was recently the first Indian director for 30 years with a film in competition in Cannes presents “All We Imagine as Light”; Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-starring “The Substance”; Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; Sebastian Stan in Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”; Cannes best director-winning Asian odyssey,...

Turkish director Zeki Demirkubuz drama Life scooped the top Golden Bee award for Best Feature Film at Malta’s second Mediterrane Film Festival over the weekend.

This year’s selection was overseen by Italian film festival veteran Teresa Cavina, who pulled together a line-up of 45 works with Mediterranean basin connections, 15 of which were in the main Competition.

In the backdrop to the festival, leading English-language newspaper The Times of Malta continued to probe whether the event’s budget of $4.1M budget (€3.9) was good use of taxpayers’ money on the island nation, with a population of roughly 500,000 people.

Last year, the newspaper heavily criticized the event for allegedly splashing cash on business class fights and luxury hotels for actors, directors and journalists as well as a lavish black-tie closing event, fronted by UK star David Walliams.

Replying to fresh questions from the newspaper, Malta Film Commission head Johann Grech said the...

Turkish director Zeki Demirkubuz’s Life won the best feature film prize at the second annual Mediterrane Film Festival’s Golden Bee Awards in Malta this weekend.

Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown won the Jury’s Choice prize, while The Strangers’ Case picked up two awards: best director for Brandt Andersen and best acting for Yasmine Al-Massri.

Mike Leigh received the festival’s career achievement award, while veteran Maltese production coordinator Rita Galea, whose credits include World War Z, received a lifetime achievement award.

The main competition jury was comprised of Jon S. Baird, Margery Simkin, Mario Philip Azzopardi,...

Zeki Demirkubuz’s “Life” was awarded the Golden Bee for best feature film at the second edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival.

Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight breakout “To a Land Unknown” took the Jury’s Choice prize, while Brandt Andersen’s “The Stranger’s Case” won Golden Bees for Best Director for Andersen and Best Acting for Yasmine Al-Massri.

The awards were handed out at a glitzy ceremony at the grand Fort Manoel in the Maltese capital of Valletta, which served as a location for “Game of Thrones” and “Assassin’s Creed.” BAFTA-winning British filmmaker Mike Leigh was honored with the festival’s Career Achievement Award after giving an extended career talk earlier at the festival with Maltese veteran production coordinator Rita Galea (“World War Z”) receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.

This year’s jury was headed by Scottish filmmaker Jon S. Baird (“Tetris”) and featured casting director Margery Simkin,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Tuesday that it is extending invitations to 487 to join the membership ranks of the Oscar organizer. If all accept, it will bring the Academy’s total membership to 10,910, of which 9,934 would be voting members.

This year’s list across 19 branches include 2024 Oscar winners Da’Vine Joy Randolph from The Holdovers; Poor Things costume designer Holly Waddington and production design team James Price, Shona Heath and Zsuzsa Mihalek; 20 Days in Mariupol director Mstyslav Chernov, War Is Over! producer Brad Booker; The Zone of Interest sound duo Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn; the Godzilla Minus One VFX team Tatsuji Nojima, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Takashi Yamazaki; American Fiction writer-director Cord Jefferson; and Anatomy of a Fall writing duo Justine Triet and Arthur Harari.

Jefferson and Triet are among eight names on the list who were invited to more than one branch (noted...

The Mediterrane Film Festival announced its complete program ahead of its second edition, taking place in Malta’s capital of Valetta from June 22-30. New titles selected include recent Cannes highlights in Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-led body horror “The Substance” and Roberto Minvervini’s “The Damned,” which join previously announced films like Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Kinds of Kindness” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw The TV Glow.”

Further program additions include Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight standout “To a Land Unknown,” which Variety labeled “a confident, angry, fully-realized drama,” and Truong Minh Quy’s Un Certain Regard breakout “Viet and Nam.” An extended version of the Malta-shot “Jurassic World: Dominion” will play as part of the Malta Expanded strand, while on the retrospective end of the program, the festival will honor David Bowie with screenings of Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” and Lisa Azuelos’s “My Way,...

The Mediterrane Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its second edition (June 22-30), with Cannes premiere The Count Of Monte Cristo set to open the event.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, the film is among seven titles in the out of competition strand, which also includes Jane Schoenbrun’s Sundance title I Saw The TV Glow and Tarsem Singh’s Dear Jassi.

The 15-strong competition section features Cannes competition titles Kinds Of Kindness and The Substance, and Berlin premiere The Strangers case starring Omar Sy,

Seven films compete in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section,...

Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival has set the full competition and industry lineup for its second edition, which runs June 22 to 30 in the country’s capital, Valletta.

The programme includes 15 films in competition, seven out-of-competition, and seven films competing in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section, topped up by 14 immersive projects.

Select competition titles include Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Kinds of Kindness, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance, and The Damned by Italian filmmaker Roberto Minvervini. All three films debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Scroll down to see the full lineup. Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller will serve on the competition jury.

The festival has also set its industry lineup, featuring a series of masterclass sessions. Speakers include editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, production designer Nathan Crowley, casting director Margery Simkin, and composer Simon Franglen...

Stars: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, Hunter Schafer | Written by Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou | Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos reteams with stars Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley for this bizarre triptych of stories that are simultaneously surreal, disturbing and darkly funny. Co-written by Efthimis Filippou, who previously collaborated with Lanthimos on Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the film marks a thrilling return to the director’s signature strangeness and the unsettling sensibilities of the Greek Weird Wave.

Set in present-day New Orleans, Kinds of Kindness tells three separate stories, with each cast member playing three different characters. The stories are nominally linked by a character named in their titles, though there is very little narrative overlap, only repeated echoes of themes, lines and images.

In the first story, “The Death of R.

Holy Chimichangas! The Merc with a Mouth is Finally teaming up with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine on the big screen in Deadpool & Wolverine. After Jackman retired as the character, we didn’t think we would get a chance to see this happen. Since the trailer reveal, we have seen this film firmly takes place in the current Multiverse Saga that the MCU is going through. With that, we’ll see our heroes cross over with a lot of surprises, and it appears to be the final send-off for much of the Fox/Marvel universe. Here is who we want to see show up during the film.

Quicksilver

Evan Peters’ take on the speedster turned into one of the most fun sections of the later X-Men movies. I still watch him evacuating the X-Mansion set to Sweet Dreams on YouTube every once in a while. It would be great to see...

Roseanne's death in The Conners brought the show back to its working-class roots, saving it from becoming out of touch. The revival ruined Roseanne's original premise of addressing income inequality and blue-collar struggles. The Conners revived the elements that made viewers care about the Conner family, bringing back Roseanne's original spirit.

As a working-class viewer of Roseanne, its revival, and The Conners, I was struck by how much killing off Roseanne brought the show back to its roots. When I first watchd Roseanne in college, the shows appeal eluded me. The episode we studied as part of TV history, season 2, episode 8, Sweet Dreams, is something of an anomaly in the shows canon. Its an odd, semi-surreal dream/ fantasy episode where Roseannes wish for a peaceful bath is repeatedly interrupted by the rest of the family. When I rewatched Roseanne years later, the episode made more sense in retrospect.

While...

The trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos’ new film has arrived. The filmmaker has already followed up his Poor Things run with Kinds of Kindness, which reunites him with the Academy Award-winning star of his last film, Emma Stone, as well as her Poor Things co-star, Willem Dafoe. The new trailer from Searchlight Pictures displays the chaotic nature of the film, with all the clips feeling non-sequitur. And with Sweet Dreams providing the soundtrack for the trailer, it certainly hammers home the dream-like feeling of this abstract movie.

When director Yorgos Lanthimos and actress Emma Stone make a feature film together, Academy Award nominations follow. Their 2018 collaboration The Favourite was nominated in the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Production Design, Costume Design, Cinematography, and Editing categories, with supporting actresses Stone and Rachel Weisz also earning nominations and lead actress Olivia Colman taking home an Oscar for her performance. Their 2023 collaboration...

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hulu's Under the Bridge

Hip-hop and rap music in Hulu's Under the Bridge plays a crucial role in setting the tone, personality, and culture of the Victoria teenagers. Inspired by a true story, Under the Bridge uses music, clothing, and dialogue to effectively set the scene and immerse viewers in the plot. The soundtrack of Under the Bridge blends diegetic hip-hop and rap with non-diegetic ambiance music to shape the characters and enhance the storytelling.

Hulu's Under the Bridge includes a soundtrack of mostly hip-hop and rap music that helps establish the world of the Victoria teenagers. Inspired by the book by Rebecca Godfrey, Under the Bridge dramatizes the story of the 1997 attack and murder of a 14-year-old girl named Reena Virk in the town of Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The entire show is available to stream now. Because Under the Bridge is based on a true story,...

Fresh out of its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Kinds of Kindness” is one of the titles headed to this year’s Mediterrane Film Festival, taking place in Malta between June 22-30.

Other highlights in the festival’s first wave of programming include Jane Schoenbrun’s Sundance breakout “I Saw the TV Glow” and Meryam Joobeur’s Berlinale competition entry “Who Do I Belong To.”

The festival’s sophomore edition marks the first under the curatorial guise of Artistic Director Teresa Cavina, appointed earlier in the year. Cavina reorganized the festival’s program into four strands: In Competition, featuring films from across the Mediterranean; Out of Competition, featuring films from the rest of the world; Mare Nostrum or Our Sea, showcasing films dedicated to sustainability and the environment; and Future Visions, focusing on experimental VR projects.

In a statement, Cavina said that this...

Athens-based sales and production outfit Heretic has sold key territories on the Cannes Film Festival’s Acid sidebar opening film, Greece’s “Kyuka: Before Summer’s End.”

Heretic has sealed distribution deals for France with The Dark, Benelux with Gusto Entertainment and Greece with Cinobo.

Directed by feature debutant Kostis Charamountanis, who previously directed several acclaimed shorts, the film follows a family of three, a single father, Babis, and his twin children on the verge of adulthood, Konstantinos and Elsa, who sail to the island of Poros on the family boat for their holidays. In the midst of swimming, sunbathing and making new friends, Konstantinos and Elsa meet, unbeknownst to them, their birth mother Anna who abandoned them when they were babies. The encounter stirs up long-held feelings of resentment in Babis, resulting in a bittersweet coming-of-age journey.

The film, which had its world premiere last week, opening Cannes Acid (Association...

Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, Billie Eilish returns in shades of blue with her third studio album, Saweetie is unstoppable in a glossy new single, and Omar Apollo puts his heart on his sleeve on the first peek into his next project. Plus, new music from Zayn, Bebe Rexha, and Lainey Wilson.

Billie Eilish, “Lunch” (YouTube)

Billie Eilish, “The Greatest” (YouTube)

Saweetie, “Nani” (YouTube)

Omar Apollo, “Dispose of Me” (YouTube)

Zayn, “Stardust” (YouTube)

Bebe Rexha,...

Robert is a New Orleans businessman so devoted to his boss that he allows him to control every detail of his schedule down to the minute, from what time he goes to bed at night to what time he makes love to his wife in the morning. Daniel is a police officer who becomes suspicious of his wife after she returns to him from being lost at sea; convinced that she’s been replaced by an impostor, he asks the supposed doppelgänger to commit increasingly demented acts of self-harm as a test of her love. Andrew is a loyal cultist whose leaders instruct him to scour the bayou area in search of a prophesied girl with the power to heal the dead.

On paper, these characters may not seem to have much in common. In Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” however, the echoes that reverberate between them eventually grow so...

Gemma Arterton has joined the cast of Carl Tibbetts’s comic crime thriller Sweet Dreams.

Aimee Lou-Wood, Niamh Algar, Nick Frost, Paapa Essiedu and Billy Howle are also set to star, as previously announced.

Metro International Entertainment continues world sales at Cannes, with the film to shoot later this year. Producers are Matthew James Wilkinson and Patrick Tolan for the UK’s Stigma Films, alongside co-producer Jamie Harvey.

The thriller unfurls in the decaying English seaside town of Claypole, where a local property developer is swindled out of a million pounds, triggering a chain of grisly and murderous events.

Major...

Warning! This article contains Spoilers for The Conners season 6, episode 11.

Ben's financial windfall in The Conners season 6 could change the family's fortunes, reminiscent of Roseanne's lottery win. The Conners season 6 storylines avoid surreal adventures to focus on realistic family dynamics and working-class life. The show can use Ben's money wisely to revive Darlene's writing dreams, avoiding the unrealistic riches that hurt Roseanne's ninth season.

While it might sound surprising, one twist in The Conners season 6, episode 11 leaves Roseannes spinoff at risk of repeating the earlier shows worst misstep. The Conners might be a direct continuation of the seminal 90s family sitcom Roseanne, but the spinoff is not exactly the same as its predecessor. For one thing, The Conners has a huge cast since the series added an entire generation of new characters to the eponymous family. For another, The Conners features fewer surreal flights of fancy than its predecessor. Despite its grounded themes,...

Paola Mayfield impressed her fans with her seamstress skills and eye for fashion, and they think her latest look resembles a fellow Colombian bombshell.

Paola is best known for her appearance on 90 Day Fiance and multiple spin-offs, but she’s also a Jill of all trades.

Since arriving in America in 2013, the Colombian-born beauty has proven that she’s multi-talented.

In addition to her reality television appearances, Paola is a personal trainer, nutritional coach, professional wrestler, and talented seamstress.

The 36-year-old reality TV personality recently uploaded a video of herself on Instagram, sharing her most recent design for her upcoming birthday weekend.

In the Reel, Paola posed inside her sewing room, showing off the green fabric she used as the remix of Disturbia and Sweet Dreams played in the background.

View this post on Instagram

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Having spent many years as a fan of Jackass, I’ve always gravitated to the career of Johnny Knoxville. The actor has a new feature currently available for streaming or purchase on Prime, and frankly, he’s excellent in it. Sweet Dreams tells the story of Morris, a man who has found himself at a sober living facility. The film, written and directed by Lije Sparks, is a sweet, funny, and heartfelt tale, one that is utterly inspiring. The sports aspect is fun, as the group put together a ragtag softball team to save their place, but it’s also a serious work. Also starring Kate Upton, Bobby Lee, Jay Mohr, and Gata, it’s an inspiring film with a huge heart.

I’ve always enjoyed chatting with Mr. Knoxville, and this was no exception. Both Johnny and Mr. Sarki opened up about bringing a bit of positivity to those struggling with addiction.

Cannes Film Festival (May 15-24) has unveiled the eight titles for its inaugural immersive competition, including projects featuring Cate Blanchett, Millie Bobby Brown, Patti Smith, Colin Farrell and Jessica Chastain.

The competition includes location-based virtual reality and mixed reality experiences, as well as projection mapping and holographic works.

Evolver is voiced by Blanchett, and has previously played at Tribeca and Geneva International Film Festiva. It is helmed by Barnaby Steel, Ersin Han Ersin and Robin McNicholas of London-based art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast. Dirty Films is also a production company, and Coco Francini, Blanchett, and Andrew Upton are executive producers on the virtual reality project,...

To celebrate the release of Sweet Dreams, Out Now to buy or rent on Digital. We have iTunes vouchers to give away to 5 lucky winners!

Johnny Knoxville, Mo Amer, Theo Von and Kate Upton unite in this wild and off-the-wall journey of second chances from the producer of The Peanut Butter Falcon. Forced into rehab at Sweet Dreams recovery centre, Morris (Knoxville) struggles to confront the wreckage of his life. But when their house goes up for auction, he reluctantly agrees to coach their misfit softball team of recovering addicts to win a cash prize and prove that everyone, despite their past, can hit a home run.

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Mo Amer, GaTa, Bobby Lee, Theo Von, Brian Van Holt, Jonnie Park, Shakewell, Adam Faison, Erik Anthony Gonzalez, Beth Grant with Jay Mohr and Kate Upton

Sweet Dreams is available Now to buy or rent on Digital

Please note: This...

by Nick Taylor

If you had approached me on the street and asked if I was a Jessica Lange fan, I would have answered with an emphatic “duh!” But since you clicked on this link, I'm coming to you through your screen to tell you this informatioin. Having originally met Lange in high school via the actress-heavy ordeal that is American Horror Story, watching her communicate an actual character amidst so much lurid, proudly threadbare plotting was revelatory to witness. Lange served Ryan Murphy’s baroque and sentimental grotesqueries with leonine force. Even as subsequent seasons leaned too heavily on her characters as pillars to be toppled, and it became all too easy to project Lange’s distaste towards her surroundings into her vainglorious Supreme and dissatisfied ringleader, she gives a hell of a good show, finding ways to keep herself amused and visibly gratified (or maybe relieved) to play off her talented co-stars.

Actors Bobby Lee and GaTa reflected on their experience in the comedy-drama Sweet Dreams in their new uInterview.

Sweet Dreams follows an alcoholic as he coaches a misfit team of his fellow housemates while he stays at a sober living unit.

Lee spoke with uInterview founder Erik Meers about what drew him to the role. “The honest truth is I went into this movie because I’m sober, and it felt like doing a once-a-month AA retreat,” he said. “This movie is about service and love.”

GaTa reflected, “I think it was a great movie. I liked working with [Lee], I liked working with all the other cast members were very easy to work with I didn’t know what to expect, but I just know the most important thing about this movie was my connection to it, having a background I can relate to about addiction.”

The movie stars Johnny Knoxville,...

It’s never easy finding that sweet spot between sentimentality and comedy, but it’s a line walked successfully by filmmaker Lije Sarki, in the gentle, at times poignant Sweet Dreams, which features Johnny Knoxville in a role far removed from that of which we’ve seen him undertake before.

To mark the film’s release we had the pleasure of speaking to both Knoxville and Sarki together, as well as the two supporting actors Bobby Lee and GaTa. We discuss the film’s tonality, the fun that was had on set – and finally got to tell Knoxville all about ‘BillyBum’. It’ll make sense after you’ve seen the interview.

Johnny Knoxville & Lije Sarki

Bobby Lee & GaTa

Synopsis

Follows Morris, who must coach a misfit softball team of his fellow housemates during his mandatory stay at Sweet Dreams sober living in order to get his life back on track.

Athens-based boutique film outfit Heretic has two titles in the Cannes Acid (Association for the International Distribution of Independent Cinemas) sidebar.

Heretic’s own Greek production, co-produced with North Macedonia’s List Production, “Kyuka Before Summer’s End,” by debut director Kostas Charamountanis, is the opening film of the Acid program. The film follows a family of three, a single father, Babis, and his twin children on the verge of adulthood, Konstantinos and Elsa, who sail to the island of Poros on the family boat for their holidays. In the midst of swimming, sunbathing and making new friends, Konstantinos and Elsa meet, unbeknownst to them, their birth mother Anna who abandoned them when they were babies. The encounter stirs up long-held feelings of resentment in Babis, resulting in a bittersweet coming-of-age journey.

“Kyuka Before Summer’s End” is produced by Danae Spathara, Giorgos Karnavas and Konstantinos Kontovrakis of Heretic, Greece...

Johnny Knoxville is open to the idea of Jackass 5, but doesn't feel the urge to make it yet, still jotting down ideas for the potential movie. If it gets greenlit, Knoxville has previously suggested leaning on the younger cast members introduced in Forever to continue the franchise in a safe and fresh way. Passing the torch to new stars while still including original cast members could keep Jackass alive for future generations.

Despite seemingly indicating the prior movie was the end for him in the franchise, Jackass 5 has gotten an exciting update from Johnny Knoxville. The co-creator/star returned to his stunt-driven property with 2022's Jackass Forever, the fourth theatrical movie which was largely touted as being the final installment, particularly for Knoxville and Steve-o, after the injuries endured throughout the years. Following Forever's record-breaking reviews and strong box office run, however, speculation of a fifth movie began swirling.

During...

Cinema for Gaza, a group launched by a small group of female filmmakers and film journalists, has successfully raised more than $315,000 to support medical aid for the civilian population in Gaza.

A celebrity auction, organized by Cinema for Gaza, and supported by the likes of Tilda Swinton, Annie Lennox, Joaquin Phoenix, Spike Lee and Guillermo del Toro, raised some $316,778 (£254,297) for Medical Aid for Palestinians (Map), a U.K.-based charity that provides on-the-ground medical support, from sterile water to cancer drugs, for those on the Gaza Strip. The celebrities donated personal items — from signed film posters to personal Zoom chats to, in the case of Lennox, the handwritten lyrics to her Eurythmics hit “Sweet Dreams” — to be sold off to the highest bidder. (Lennox’s lyrics sheet was the top seller, with a bidder paying $26,222 for the piece of pop music history).

The Zone of Interest filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, who...

Actor Johnny Knoxville and director Lije Sarki reflected on the meaning of their new movie, Sweet Dreams, in their new uInterview.

Sweet Dreams follows a father (Knoxville) forced into rehab as he coaches a softball team of unconventional men in recovery.

When asked what drew him to the role, Knoxville told uInterview founder Erik Meers, “My dad was an alcoholic, a lot of my friends are in recovery. There’s been many times in my life where I distracted with this or that, so there was a lot of time of preparation for this role.”

Sarki, who wrote the movie inspired by his own experience with alcoholism, remembered one of his favorite scenes.

“Where they’re in the circle upstairs in the attic of the house, he talks about the Frag meeting, you know, Fear, Resentment, Acceptance, Gratitude – that was really really powerful,” he recalled. “Both that scene and the...

Amsterdam-based, Bosnian-born filmmaker Ena Sendijarević’s two features to date, Take Me Somewhere Nice and Sweet Dreams, hone the filmmaker’s personal cinematic language while expanding the parameters of her own perspective. The former, her 2019 debut feature, follows a Dutch teen as she journeys to visit her ailing Bosnian father in the hospital. The latter, which will screen at NYC’s Metrograph beginning today, chronicles the decline of a wealthy Dutch family’s Indonesian sugar plantation at the turn of the 20th century. While her first feature explores the contours of Eastern and Western European relations—a subject Sendijarević is familiar with as a […]

The post “I Love the Kind of Cinema That [Tells You Everything] Through Images, Where Every Frame is Like a Painting”: Ena Sendijarević’ on Her Metrograph Series, Sweet Dreams first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Amsterdam-based, Bosnian-born filmmaker Ena Sendijarević’s two features to date, Take Me Somewhere Nice and Sweet Dreams, hone the filmmaker’s personal cinematic language while expanding the parameters of her own perspective. The former, her 2019 debut feature, follows a Dutch teen as she journeys to visit her ailing Bosnian father in the hospital. The latter, which will screen at NYC’s Metrograph beginning today, chronicles the decline of a wealthy Dutch family’s Indonesian sugar plantation at the turn of the 20th century. While her first feature explores the contours of Eastern and Western European relations—a subject Sendijarević is familiar with as a […]

The post “I Love the Kind of Cinema That [Tells You Everything] Through Images, Where Every Frame is Like a Painting”: Ena Sendijarević’ on Her Metrograph Series, Sweet Dreams first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.